Since then, a company fracking in the Fox Creek area reported two earthquakes with magnitudes of 2.2 and 2.1 on May 28, according to The Tyee. A third measuring 2.4 was also detected on April 16 in the same region.

Gail Atkinson, who researches induced seismic hazards at Western University in Ontario, found that a “swarm” of 25 earthquakes with magnitudes of 2.5 to 3.5 between 2013 and 2014 in the Crooked Lake region near Fox Creek corresponded “closely to hydraulic fracture treatments of oil and gas production wells in the immediate vicinity.”

Fracking is an increasing concern in the U.S. In Oklahoma for example, earthquakes are occurring at a rate that’s 600 times the historical average. In 2014, the U.S. state experienced 585 earthquakes of 3.0-magnitude or higher, compared to an average of 1.6 quakes annually between 1978 and 2008.

They are “very likely triggered” by wastewater injection that’s part of the fracking process, said a report released by the state this spring.”
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